Friday, November 29, 2013

"Critics of free immigration worry that immigrants might change the country, make it more socialist, more crime ridden, more like the places they are coming from, but offer no strong reason to expect those particular effects. Leaving the place where you grew up to move somewhere very different is, after all, evidence that you prefer the latter. As I pointed out in one exchange, the Volokh brothers, associated with the popular libertarian/conservative legal blog the Volokh Conspiracy, are immigrants from the ex-Soviet Union. While Eugene and Sasha Volokh may be slightly more socialist than I am, they are much less socialist than most of their fellow academics, not entirely surprising given that they have experienced socialism at first hand."

Professor Friedman is soliciting criticism of newest chapters of the Third Edition of the Machinery of Freedom.

With regards to the assertion above, polls show that Hispanics are by in large in favor of the welfare state and Obamacare, while disfavoring Capitalism.

Maybe we can assume that Hispanics that want to come the U.S. are self-selecting for a life of capitalism and so favor the same? I think it's assuming quite a bit to think that people who are seeking or reaping the benefits of capitalism necessarily see what is causing those benefits. If that was the case, Americans would be much more pro-capitalism. Additionally, both Republicans and Democrats seem to think Hispanic immigrants are Democrat voters. Since they have a keen personal interest in the subject, I assume they know what they are talking about.

"Of course, survival is usually a means to reproductive success, so most living things most of the time are trying to survive. But a living being that put survival above everything else would not reproduce, so its descendants would not be around for Rand to use as evidence in deriving oughts."

Zachary Price on the Constitution and Enforcement Discretion | The Volokh ConspiracyThe Volokh Conspiracy: "Through close examination of the text, history, and normative underpinnings of the Constitution, as well as relevant historical practice, the article demonstrates that there is indeed a constitutional authority of enforcement discretion — but it is both limited and defeasible. Presidents may properly decline enforcement of civil and criminal prohibitions in particular cases, notwithstanding their obligation under the Take Care Clause to ensure that “the Laws be faithfully executed.” But this authority does not extend to prospective licensing of prohibited conduct, nor to policy-based non-enforcement of federal laws for entire categories of offenders. Presuming such forms of executive discretion would collide with another deeply rooted constitutional tradition: the principle that American Presidents, unlike English Kings, lack authority to suspend statutes or dispense with their application to particular individuals. This framework not only clarifies the proper executive duty with respect to enforcement of federal statutes, but also points the way to proper resolution of other recurrent separation-of-powers issues."

"Such was the intention of the Compact – by eliminating any semblance of private property and personal accountability, which were declared to be the foundation for avarice and selfishness – prosperity and brotherly love would result. How did it work out?

You need only look at the cleanliness of your office fridge or the condition of a public bathroom for a glimpse into the horrors of such collectivism. People suffered, starved and perished. Governor Bradford wrote in his diary, “For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense … that was thought injustice.”"

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Volokh Conspiracy | Commentary on law, public policy, and moreThe Volokh Conspiracy: "One of the illuminating things about this video is the combination of cluelessness and arrogance of the petty bureaucrats that run student life on university campuses these days. What a classic line that captures the whole incident in a nutshell (uttered by the university bureaucrat in charge of handing out the permits): “[We have] two people on campus right now, so you’d have to wait until either the 20th, 27th, or you can go into October.”"

Krauthammer on Iran Nuclear Agreement: 'It's The Worst Deal Since Munich' | NewsBusters: "And what is the result of this agreement? Iran retains the right to enrich. It continues to enrich during the six months. It is promised a final deal in which we’re going to work out the details of its enrichment. And remember, enrichment is the dam against all proliferation. Once a country anywhere can start to enrich there is no containing its nuclear capacity. So it undermines the entire idea of nonproliferation, and it grants Iran a right it’s been lusting for for a decade. That’s why there was so much jubilation in Tehran over this."

Monday, November 25, 2013

Causation is hard. Especially in the realm of public policy, where multiple factors affect any one outcome, such that there is almost always another explanation for any given outcome. That's not to say that some explanations aren't better than others. Just that, in the face of evidence that contradicts a person's philosophical belief, there's always enough wiggle room for the belief to survive the confrontation.

An illustration or two. The stimulus bill was designed to get the economy going and lower unemployment. Now, the unemployment forecasts were much rosier than the actual path of the unemployment rate. One explanation is that the stimulus failed to jump start the economy as promised. But another explanation is that the economy was just in much rougher shape than the forecasters could know. (Don't let it trouble you that the forecasters did not understand the condition of the current economy, while attempting to predict the future economy.) And a third explanation is that the stimulus just wasn't big enough to have the rosy impact that was predicted. We failed to spend enough money to get the job done.

So here we have three explanations of what the stimulus accomplished or didn't accomplish, each consistent with the history, and each ascribed to by smart people. Take your pick of what you want to believe based on your theory of economics or government.

Same thing is going to happen with insurance prices post-Obamacare. Your insurance premiums went up? Or your Deductible went up? Or you have fewer doctor options? It's probably due to the excessive regulation in Obamacare. Unless you're a Democrat. Then it's probably due to a spike in insurance companies' levels of greed. Or, you're actually better off than you would be, because premiums would have been even higher, but for Obamacare.

That's why the failure of Healthcare.gov is instructive. Because the counter factual is so easy. It's hard to know how the world would have looked without the stimulus, or without Obamacare. But I can imagine a world with a functional website for buying insurance. I have seen functional websites. In fact I have purchased things from them.

Having spent millions of dollars and three years, the administration's failure to get the website working right speaks volumes about it competency to do much harder things, like forecast the effect of 800 billion dollars of stimulus spending, or predict the intended and unintended consequences of 20,000 pages of Obamacare regulation.

The Death of Star Wars | National Review Online: "First, backstory: I’m a Star Wars purist, but I’m also a Star Wars minimalist. I watched the original three movies over and over and over and over as a little kid and loved them with a love that is true. (One of my clearest memories is playing in our backyard with my neighbor, fortuitously named Luke, and pretending the swings were TIE fighters.) But I never got into the three prequels, on principle."

“That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins–all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.
“Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding dispair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”"

The good news that there is no God: "But God’s absence also seems to deprive the acts undertaken with such freedom of any lasting significance. They become as trivial morally as many of them already were in other respects. Faithful spouses and utterly unfaithful playboys will rot alike, along with their partners, unremembered and irrelevant. And, if atheism is true, whatever good things it confers (no time-consuming church responsibilities! no boring Sunday meetings! no guilt after getting drunk or spending quality time with pornographic videos! cocktail parties!) come at the high price of living in a universe that is entirely indifferent, one that could, in fact, easily be described as hostile except that it is completely unconscious and lacks any purposes or intentions at all. Lost loved ones will remain lost forever. Children will die, and will then be as if they had never lived. Everything human — the pyramids, happy families, Beethoven’s symphonies, children’s songs, the plays of Shakespeare, memories of holidays at the beach, the sculptures and paintings of Michelangelo — will perish, and there will be nobody, anywhere, to remember them."

Knitting With Dog Hair: Kendall Crolius: 9780312104894: Amazon.com: Books: "Be very careful with this book. Thinking myself clever, I shaved my dog, then knitted him a sweater using his own fur. I believe this paradox may have ripped a small hole in the space-time continuim. My son seems to be now aging in reverse, causing me to deduct one star from this review. Otherwise a very informative book."

Friday, November 22, 2013

Facebook: ""I grew up on a rice farm in Guyana. We didn't have running water or electricity, or anything like that. I didn't come to America until I was 14. My friend has been struggling lately because she can't get a job she wants, even though she's really talented. She's lived in New York her whole life and hasn't travelled very much, and she said to me: 'I don't understand why anyone would want to immigrate to America.' I told her:
"Trust me-- if there's a heaven, this is it.'""

How Things Have Changed from 50 Years Ago «: "The War on Poverty might have been more accurately termed a war to consolidate Johnson’s influence. Poor rural families got grants and loans to expand their farms — provided they stayed on the farms, where Johnson needed their votes. Job training, educational programs, small business loans — all were available as long as you lived your life in a way that suited Lyndon Johnson’s purposes.

It was Johnson who launched the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to ensure that the agendas of the arts, the humanities and the airwaves could be guided by the tastes of officials appointed by Lyndon Johnson. It was Johnson who arrogated unto himself and his cronies the power to veto private rental and employment contracts."

Fareed Zakaria: Why Americans hate their government - The Washington Post: "But whatever the answer, if there is one, the real story is that both are examples of a major, and depressing, trend: the declining competence of the federal government. Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, has been saying for years that most Americans believe their government can no longer act effectively and that this erosion of competence, and hence confidence, is a profound problem."

Mediaite's Tommy Christopher Asks Single Worst Question Ever at WH Press Briefing: "First of all, I don’t if you’re aware of this, but when I had a heart attack three years ago, I was uninsured, and I haven’t been able to get insurance ever since then. Listening to all the pressure on the president to negotiate, a lot of it from inside this room, it made me think, is there a chance the president would be willing to delay Obamacare for a year if Republicans were to agree to delay heart attacks for a year?"

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Dangerous Games - "Point 'em Out, Knock 'em Out": "The victim was attacked by 17-year-old Marvell Weaver. But Weaver did more than try to knock his victim out, he tried to do it with a taser. Luckily for the victim, the taser didn't work and he was able to protect himself with his concealed-carry .40 caliber pistol.

"He shoved something into my side. I wasn't sure what it was. It had some force to it. I wasn't sure if it was a knife or a gun," said the victim.

Weaver was shot twice, in the leg and an inch away from his spine. He's been sentenced to a year in jail for the attack, but he admits he's getting off easy."

“In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,” Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff in an email message obtained by POLITICO. “Simply unacceptable.”"

The Volokh Conspiracy | Commentary on law, public policy, and moreThe Volokh Conspiracy: "Viewed in this context, Z-Trip’s response of “Dope!” plainly communicated that, in some sense, he “approve[d]” of “the video.” But such approval is quite distinct from conveying assent to a mutual exchange of promises or other consideration. And it certainly did not convey that Z-Trip had authority to approve, on behalf of the Beastie Boys, a free license to Monster to use the Beastie Boys’ recordings and songs."

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Campaign Spot | National Review Online: "“Before we blame the problems with Healthcare.gov on ‘big government’ or ‘liberalism,’ we should remember that the Affordable Care Act needed GOP cooperation to succeed.”

Why? As Robert Gamble noted, “If your plan requires complete control and no opposition, then it isn’t a plan, it’s a wish.”"

Seattle socialism: Kshama Sawant has some bad ideas.: "Can Boeing's front-line workers actually retool an airplane factory and turn it to bus production and win contracts to sell buses that raise enough revenue to keep everyone employed? Only time will tell for sure, but in the real world the answer is "no." This is exactly what you need executives for. Retooling plants, establishing relationships with suppliers and customers, understanding the size of the market for buses, and all that other stuff is a non-trivial task."

Obama: Republicans Making It Difficult To Fix Obamacare Glitches | RealClearPolitics: "PRESIDENT OBAMA: The last point I'll make is that in terms of expectation setting, there's no doubt that in an environment in which we had to fight tooth and nail to get this passed, it ended up being passed on a partisan basis -- not for lack of trying, because I met with an awful lot of Republicans to try to get them to go along -- but because there was just ideological resistance to the idea of dealing with the uninsured and people with preexisting conditions. There was a price to that, and it was that what was already going to be hard was operating within a very difficult political environment. And we should have anticipated that that would create a rockier rollout than if Democrats and Republicans were both invested in success.

One of the problems we've had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure, and that makes, I think, the kind of iterative process of fixing glitches as they come up and fine-tuning the law more challenging. But I'm optimistic that we can get it fixed. (Wall Street Journal CEO Council, November 19, 2013)"

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

"Reconsidering Citizens United as a Press Clause Case" | The Volokh ConspiracyThe Volokh Conspiracy: "The central flaw in the analysis of Citizens United by both the majority and the dissent was to treat it as a free speech case rather than a free press case. The right of a group to write and disseminate a documentary film criticizing a candidate for public office falls within the core of the freedom of the press. It is not constitutional for the government to punish the dissemination of such a documentary by a media corporation, and it therefore follows that it cannot be constitutional to punish its dissemination by a non-media corporation like Citizens United unless the freedom of the press is confined to the institutional media. Precedent, history, and pragmatics all refute the idea that freedom of the press is so confined."

More Freedom on the Airplane, if Nowhere Else - NYTimes.com: "The total number of federal regulatory restrictions is now more than one million. And they’re not all necessarily good ideas. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration has banned some useful asthma treatments because they have a slight negative impact on the ozone layer. The nation has medical-device regulations that take longer to satisfy than those of the European Union."

College Cheating and Public Service «: "In this paper, we demonstrate that university students who cheat on a simple task in a laboratory setting are more likely to state a preference for entering public service. Importantly, we also show that cheating on this task is predictive of corrupt behavior by real government workers, implying that this measure captures a meaningful propensity towards corruption. Students who demonstrate lower levels of prosocial preferences in the laboratory games are also more likely to prefer to enter the government, while outcomes on explicit, two-player games to measure cheating and attitudinal measures of corruption do not systematically predict job preferences. "

Thursday, November 14, 2013

‘What We’re Also Discovering Is That Insurance Is Complicated to Buy’ | National Review Online: "This might have been my favorite line in President Obama’s press conference. After using every possible means to pass a law transforming American health insurance, after making the law heavily dependent on people purchasing health insurance through a federal website, after years of implementation and after hundreds of millions of dollars, it is only dawning on them now that health insurance is complicated to buy?"

Obamacare Schadenfreudarama | National Review Online: "But not as delicious as the tears of his praetorian guard. First of all, every day Jay Carney looks even more like a little boy who put on his dad’s suit. You have to wonder what goes on in his mind, as a former journalist, when he tells his former colleagues that “the American forces have been completely destroyed with minimal Iraqi casualties.” "

Obamacare Schadenfreudarama | National Review Online: "During the government shutdown, Barack Obama held fast, heroically refusing to give an inch to the hostage-taking, barbaric orcs of the Tea Party who insisted on delaying Obamacare. It was a triumph for the master strategist in the White House, who finally maneuvered the Republicans into revealing their extremism. But we didn’t know something back then: Obama desperately needed a delay of Healthcare.gov. In his arrogance, though, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The other possibility is that he is such an incompetent manager, who has cultivated such a culture of yes-men, that he was completely in the dark about the problems. That’s the reigning storyline right now from the White House. Obama was betrayed. “If I had known,” he told his staff, “we could have delayed the website.”"

Obamacare Schadenfreudarama | National Review Online: "If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more."

Freespace: The lawlessness of Obamacare: "s Christina and I observe in an article coming in the next issue of Regulation, this sort of behavior indicates a profound failing with Obamacare: one that runs much deeper than the policy problems that have been the focus of recent debates. From its unconstitutional origin, to the rewrite that the Roberts Court put on the law, to the unconstitutional delegation of lawmaking power to unelected, independent bureaucrats, to the halting and unpredictable manner in which it is being enforced or not--depending on political pressure--Obamacare has been a sustained assault on the concept of the rule of law itself."

Policy Cancellations: Obama Will Allow Old Plans: "Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama on Thursday announced changes to his health care law that would give insurance companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled.

The administrative changes are good for just one year, though senior administration officials said they could be extended if problems with the law persist. Obama announced the changes at the White House."

Doesn't this put the lie to the argument that the House Republicans shut down the government? True, Republicans were asking for a year delay in the individual mandate, and this only delays the coverage mandates. But I'm pretty sure Republicans would have taken this in a deal to keep the government open.

What does this say about Obama and Democrats? Given this new policy, how else can you explain Democrats refusal to negotiate as anything other than bad faith politicking?

Monday, November 11, 2013

Greed-o-Meter «: "Just wanted to update my readers on the amount of greed in the economy.

In March of this year, the average retail price of gasoline was $3.85.
In the first week of November, the average retail price of gasoline was $3.34.
So, I guess gas and oil companies are feeling 13% less greedy these days! Whew."

Being a Mormon is Hard | Junior Ganymede: "Since then my experience as a church member, or as a father and a husband, has been much the same. Never an unmixed success. Never a performance that I could feel I hadn’t unnecessarily tainted with sins of commission and omission. I am a shabby Mormon. These failures are better than successes elsewhere. I have found more joy making a hash of things in the gospel path than would be possible on any other path pursued however flawlessly. I mean that."

One of the major selling points for using ObamaCare to disrupt our health care system (that polls showed up to 80% of Americans were satisfied with) was to insure the uninsured. But according to this poll, only a very small minority of that small minority is even interested in obtaining insurance."

I remember Ann Coulter (of all people!) predicting quite sensibly that the penalty for being uninsured wasn't big enough to induce individuals to buy insurance. I don't remember a lot of other people saying that publicly, but I'm sure there were.

Defending the Faith: Henry Eyring exemplified both science and faith | Deseret News: "Since several other chemists later received the Nobel Prize for work based on it, his own failure to receive the Nobel Prize remains rather mysterious. In any event, the academy awarded him the Berzelius Medal in 1977, perhaps as partial compensation. He also won the Priestley Medal, the highest award given by the American Chemical Society, in 1975 and the Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry in 1980."

University physicists study urine splash-back and offer best tactics for men (w/ Video): "(Phys.org) —A team of four physicists at Brigham Young University (calling themselves "wizz-kids") has been studying the physics properties of urine splash-back in a urinal-like environment. Their mission was to uncover the fluid dynamics involved in male peeing and to hopefully discern which approach leads to the least amount of splash-back (and less mess). They will be presenting their results at the American Physical Society Meeting later this month."

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

You Lie | National Review Online: "Never before in the history of the Republic has a president lied so boldly, so unequivocally, so repeatedly about a matter that has such a significant impact on hundreds of millions of Americans — and that also happens to be his administration’s signature achievement."

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Transgender Grammar | National Review Online: "Addendum: As an example of the absurdities that this politically correct usage can lead to, consider this sentence from a recent New Republic article: “She has also tried to castrate herself by tying off her testicles.”"

I think this hints at something deep in the liberal psyche that I don't quite understand. I'm not quite sure how to put my finger on it, but I'd summarize it as: the truth is whatever you feel is true. Thus, if you feel like you're a woman, you are.

I see another manifestation of the phenomenon in some liberals' assertion that life begins when the mother thinks the child is alive.

Monday, November 4, 2013

George W. Bush is smarter than you « Keith Hennessey: "President Bush is extremely smart by any traditional standard. He’s highly analytical and was incredibly quick to be able to discern the core question he needed to answer. It was occasionally a little embarrassing when he would jump ahead of one of his Cabinet secretaries in a policy discussion and the advisor would struggle to catch up. He would sometimes force us to accelerate through policy presentations because he so quickly grasped what we were presenting."

Charles Krauthammer: Obamacare laid bare - The Washington Post: "So that your president can promise to cover 30 million uninsured without costing the government a dime. Which from the beginning was the biggest falsehood of them all. And yet the free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism. Free mammograms, free preventative care, free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Come and get it."

Facebook: ""My girlfriend and I aborted a child a couple of weeks ago."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"We didn't lose anything. It was a choice."
"Were both of you equally on board with the decision?"
"She followed my lead, which made it tougher I guess. But I've got so much going on right now, and she just opened her own theater show. It's just not the right time."
"How's the aftermath been?"
"You know, I always thought of abortion as a common thing. I'm a liberal guy. Pro-choice and everything. But I never imagined how bloody painful it was going to be."
"Do you mind if I post your story?"
"With my picture? I'd prefer not.""

AP: 3.5 Million Insurance Plans Canceled | National Review Online: "There are at least 3.5 million Americans who would take issue with President Obama’s promise that they could keep their insurance plans if they want to, according to the Associated Press. In a state-by-state breakdown, the news agency came to the figure by tracking notices through insurers in each state.

“The law is getting more and more real for people,” said Drew Altman, Kaiser Family Foundation president. “A lot of this will turn on whether there’s a perception that there have been more winners than losers. . . . It’s not whether an expert thinks something is a better insurance policy, it’s whether people perceive it that way.”"

Saturday, November 2, 2013

A Phalanx of Lies | National Review Online: "On Day One, the junkies were eager for their fix: As the administration crowed, the site received 4.7 million unique visits. By the following morning, the HHS “war room” was informed that “six enrollments have occurred so far.” That’s six as in half a dozen, as in fewer people than in just one vehicle of Obama’s 40-car motorcade. Kathleen Sebelius had successfully enrolled one American for every assistant secretary of health and human services. Oh, no, wait: She has seven assistant secretaries, so there was one free, waiting for that seventh enrollee. One in every 783,333 visitors managed to close the deal: Dr. Obama could make house calls to every one and still have time for a round of golf."

Friday, November 1, 2013

The Arrogance of Obama, and Obamacare | Coyote Blog: "More expensive, more highly featured products are not necessarily "better". A Mercedes is not necessarily the best car choice for a middle class buyer just because it has more features than his Taurus. Would Obama tell that person his Taurus is "sub-standard" and force him to pay for a Mercedes? If not, why the hell is doing the exact same thing but with health insurance OK?"

The Arrogance of Obama, and Obamacare | Coyote Blog: "So I guess the Left has hit on its favored meme in response to the millions of insurance cancellations. From Obama to Valerie Jarrett to any number of bloggers, the explanation is that the cancelled policies were "sub-standard". We may have thought we liked them, but it turns out we were wrong. Deluded in fact.

These folks -- despite not knowing my income, my net worth, my health situation, my age, my family size, my number and age of kids, my risk adversity, my degree of hypochondria, my preventative care habits, my diet, my lifestyle, my personal preferences and priorities, or any details about my insurance policy that I spend many hours analyzing and cross-comparing -- have decided they know better than I what health insurance I should want."